Inquiries under way into how man got gun into jail

The CPD inquiry joins a separate Cook County Sheriff's office investigation in trying to determine how four separate pat-down searches failed to detect the palm-sized gun Bennie Ellison had hidden inside his shorts. Ellison was in possession of the .38-caliber handgun when he was before a bond court judge on drug possession charges March 18, authorities said.

Ellison was charged Saturday with unlawful use of a weapon and bringing a weapon into a penal institution, and ordered held on $25,000 bond.

Four separate pat-downs failed to detect the gun, which Ellison had tied to the drawstrings inside of his shorts and hidden flush against the skin of his "groin area," said Cook County Sheriff's spokesman Steve Patterson.

Three of the searches were conducted by Chicago Police Department officers, and a fourth was conducted by a sheriff's deputy before the bond hearing, Patterson said.

After his bond was set, Ellison was transferred to intake, where he was supposed to pass through a body scan detector. But he avoided doing so by slipping into a line of men who had already passed through the detector, Patterson said.

Ellison then tossed the gun into a laundry pile in a loading area outside Division 5 at the jail.

An inmate working at the dock discovered the weapon the next morning in a pile of laundry and told the guards.

From the serial number on the gun, investigators traced the weapon to a Texas man who registered it, Patterson said. That man said he sold the gun to a Chicago man, who then told police he sold it to Ellison.

When questioned by investigators, Ellison told police he hid the gun because he thought he would be released on a low bond for the drug charges and did not want to lose the weapon, Patterson said. He told police he had no intention of using it in the courtroom or jail.

"He really provided internal affairs investigators with a roadmap for where there were breaches in the system," Patterson said. "We are able to identify exactly where he breached security because he was so open about it."

The information has helped a Sheriff's office investigation that has been in progress for about a week, Patterson said, with about a dozen correctional officers interviewed about the incident.

"There is no doubt termination is a possibility for some folks," Patterson said.